Gravity Falls: 20th Century Time Travel
by TheOptimisticSpectator
Summary: In this tale of the Pine Twins, who are now freshman college students, they will find themselves wrapped up in time travel. Journey along with the pair as they traverse the wonders -and horrors- of time travel as they jump across different time periods, seeing and experiencing all that has to be offered in the 1900s. (DISCONTINUED)
1. The Father Clock

**DISCLAIMER**

 _This story was requested to be written by:_ **retro mania**

 _If anyone else wants story requests to be done, you can PM me, and we will go over the specifics._

* * *

 **Chapter 1: The Father Clock**

"Thank goodness we got a break! If I had to write one more essay on aerodynamics…"

Dipper left the sentence hanging, leaving Mabel to wonder what Dipper was trying to infer. However, her constant-optimistic thinking didn't let her imagination go beyond 'taking a rest break'.

On June 4th, Stanford University had released all students to go spend their vacations as they pleased. Some had talked about vacationing to England or Japan, others wanted to work full-time for their own benefit. However, the Pine twins had decided it was about time to revisit some friends from long ago.

"I can't wait to see Grunkle Stan, Soos, and all those other guys this summer!" Mabel remarked.

Dipper nodded his head. It was indeed an aspiration he had since he had left, years ago. Though it was great being in college and earning his degree, he missed the mystery of Gravity Falls. He wanted, deeply, to revisit that type of wonder again.

It was funny, really. When he moved back to California, he had wandered the woods, explored haunted locations, and done a ton of other stuff just to find some of that mystery again.

Unfortunately, there was none to be found. At this thought, he wondered if there was some sort of...magic, around Oregon. For a long time, he had considered choosing a college _in_ Oregon just so he could be around his friends and further explore the mysteries surrounding the state.

"So, are we driving there or taking a plane?" Mabel asked, looking at Dipper. He rubbed his chin as he considered it.

"I want to spend as much time there as possible. Let's take a plane there."

* * *

 _Bing-bong._

"Hello, passengers, this is your, uh, captain speaking. We're about an hour away from our destination of Portland, Oregon. Our _lovely_ attendants will address whatever needs you have. Ooh, whatever needs indeed…"

 _Oh, my,_ Dipper thought. The pilot of this airplane seemed a little...sleazy.

He looked around. Kids were playing on devices, parents were either sleeping or watching movies. Mabel was sound asleep.

 _Thank goodness she doesn't snore anymore,_ Dipper thought. He had remembered countless nights where he had been kept up by her war-horn snoring.

He turned his head, staring out the window. Below, he could see trees and mountains pass by. They were flying through clouds, so the mist casted an almost heavenly fade on the landscape.

 _ **BOOF!**_

Suddenly, the plane shook violently. Mabel snapped out of her sleep, looking around in a panicked manner.

"What's happening?!" She asked in a frantic tone.

Then, as abruptly as the plane had shaken, it stopped.

 _Bing-bong._

"Uh, this is your captain speaking once again, it looks like we encountered some, uh, turbulence-"

On cue, as Dipper looked out of the window, he saw them pass through a storm, with heavy rain and lightning bolts characterizing the majority of his view.

"-So please, make sure your seat belts are buckled in, so we don't get sued- er, because your safety is our priority. Enjoy the ride."

As the overhead speaker went off, Mabel groaned.

"Well, I can't sleep now. What am I gonna do?"

"Uh...you could, you know, talk to your long-time sibling and bestie?"

"Oooh, yeah." Mabel remarked, flashing her shiny grin. Having had taken her braces off when they had entered high school, her now-straightened teeth made her smile dazzle.

"Sooo, how ya doin', buddy? Gettin' anywhere near your career as an aerospace engineer?"

He shrugged.

"We both just started college, so it's not like we're gonna be getting anywhere until we get our degrees. Besides, I have to decide whether I want to work for NASA or a private corporation like SpaceX. After all, they're making more progress after all."

Mabel tilted her head, her hair falling to the side.

"Why's that?"

"Well, because they have more funding than NASA. When you can allocate more funding to your organization, you can get more stuff done."

Mabel nodded, understanding the concept.

"So...you want a career in marine biology, right?"

Mabel's eyes lit up as they got onto the topic.

 _Oh, no,_ Dipper thought, realizing what he had done.

"Heck, yeah! I want to explore the deep parts of the sea. Did you know that we've only explored 5% of the entire ocean so far? Imagine, there's so much stuff unexplored! We could find _sooo_ many cool things, like megalodons, underwater civilizations, and even _*gasp*_ MERMAIDS! Oh my gosh, if we could see mermaids, I would be-"

Dipper sighed. This would be a long ride.

"Let's hope this weather clears up." He says dejectedly.

It didn't clear up.

* * *

Finally, after a shaky and violent airplane ride and a long bus ride, the two had finally arrived at the entrance to Gravity Falls.

They gazed upon the sight of the town once again. Where their eyes were once filled with skepticism, even fear, they now marveled at the towering pine trees, flowing waterfalls, and gigantic stone bowl that surrounded the small town.

As Dipper looked at the beautiful town, he felt his eyes become watery. He rubbed his hands against them, making sure that Mabel didn't see him reminiscing in such a manner.

Mabel was about to dash for the town when Dipper grabbed her by the arm.

"Hold on, Mabel. Before we go seeing everyone again, let's go take a visit to the Mystery Shack."

A flood of memories about the Mystery Shack came racing back into Mabel's head, and a smile lit up her face like a Christmas tree. She squealed in excitement.

"Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, you're RIGHT! We have to go see Grunkle Stan and Ford and Soos again!"

Dipper nodded. He couldn't help but smile as he thought about those two. The twins had sent tons of postcards to them since they had left the town, and had also received some themselves from the town. He couldn't wait to see Stan and Ford once again.

However, as Mabel went racing down the dirt trail to the shack, Dipper felt that something was….off.

 _Yes, this must be the feeling of mystery once again!,_ Dipper thought in excitement. With that thought presiding inside his head, he raced to the cabin, trying to catch up to his sister.

* * *

"Come on, Dipper! We're almost there!"

"Hold- _*huff*_ Hold on a second!"

All those hours of studying and lack of exercise were really taking their toll on Dipper. That was actually the one thing that he had improved upon at Gravity Falls.

Not even taking a second, Mabel busted through the front door of the Mystery Shack.

"HEY GRUNKLE STAN, WE'RE BA- huh?"

She found the shack to be devoid of life. Dipper came staggering up behind her, panting heavily.

"Where...where are they?"

They both entered the shack, hesitantly walking in. The place was eerily empty. There were no signs of life anywhere. Even the cup of coffee that Stan always left sitting on the tableside was gone.

"Um...oh, maybe they're at the town." Dipper commented.

"Oh yeah, that would make sense. Well, let's get goin'!"

As they raced back, heading to the town, Dipper stayed back for a moment, surveying the place. Though he had remarked that they could have headed to town, he wasn't so sure of that himself. He remembered that Stan never liked to leave the Mystery Shack unattended, in case any robbers tried to come in and steal his wares (not that anybody would want that garb- _*cough*_ those antiquities). So it was really odd for no one to be home.

As Dipper began running back towards his sister, that feeling of eeriness that Dipper had experienced earlier was starting to grow.

* * *

"Where...where is everyone?"

Dipper could hear the panic in Mabel's voice as she walked around the town, looking for any of the people she had countless memories with. Dipper had noticed that the town, just like the shack, was eerily empty.

"This is...unsettling."

Most people who were new to this town, upon seeing a lack of citizens, would immediately think that there was some sort of evacuation or something. Dipper however, knowing the town's history of mystery, felt dread begin to quickly replace that eerie feeling that had been encompassing his mind for the past few minutes. Something was definitely wrong.

Mabel, in a fit of desperation and panic, began to kick in doors, shouting into the buildings.

"Anyone! Anyone here?!"

"H-hey, Mabel! You can't just bust into people's homes like that!"

Mabel looked back and, upon seeing what she had done, felt ashamed of herself for acting so irrational.  
"Sorry...but, where is everyone?"

"That's what i'm trying to figure out."

Dipper noticed gray clouds begin to mesh overhead. Wind blew softly through the town, shaking the pine trees and giving off an ominous vibe. Dipper began to feel _fear_.

That's when he noticed something at the town square, in front of the statue.

"Hey, what's that over there?"

He walked over to the town square, seeing a small, long metal-looking object sitting at the foot of the statue. He picked it up. It looked like a timer of some sorts, as there were four digit slots that spanned the length of the object.

|0000|

Dipper noticed that in each digit slot, there was a '0'. On the side of the object, he noticed a button with a glass rectangular cover over it. Dipper noticed a hinge that allowed the cover to flip open, and he did so. He put his finger on the button.

"Ow!"

As he pressed the button, he felt four sharp pricks to his finger from small needles that immediately retracted back into the device. Dipper saw his blood drops stain the button. He was befuddled when they soaked into the button, which glowed for a moment, then faded.

" _Traveler #1 confirmed. Please confirm any more travelers before starting the trip."_

A woman's robotic voice announced the instructions through the speaker below the bar of digits. Dipper was even more bewildered by this.

"Um…"

"What happened, Dipper?"

As Mabel came walking over, she noticed his finger bleeding.

"Oh gosh, your finger! What did you-"

As she continued talking, she set one hand on the device while she grabbed his hand, accidentally placing a finger on the button.

"Ow!"

The same pricks had gotten her, and the needles once again retracted into the device. Her blood drops also stained the button, before shortly getting absorbed into it. It glowed once again.

" _Traveler #2 confirmed. Please confirm any more travelers before starting the trip."_

"What was that?" Mabel asked in concern. Dipper took a look at her, then back at the device.

"I...don't know. But I think this thing might be the answer as to why the whole town is gone."

"Do you think...we should pull that handle?"

"What handle?"

Mabel pointed at the device, pulling Dipper's attention along with it. On top of the device, there was an elongated handle that had emerged out of the device, with a horizontal trigger inside of it.

"Oh…"

He considered this for a moment. Dipper wasn't an idiot, especially after that summer in Gravity Falls, when it came to pulling levers and handles. This could have grave consequences if they decided to pull it. However, there didn't seem to be anything else that hinted to the mysterious disappearance of the town.

"We...might as well."

He looked back at Mabel, who was looking at the device nervously.

"Are we sure about this?"

"No...but this looks like the only way to find out what happened to the town."

Mabel hesitated at first. Eventually, she nodded.

"You're right."

"Are you ready?"

"...Yeah."

Dipper took a breath.

 _Here we go._

He pulled on the trigger inside the handle.

The digits inside the device began to spin rapidly, before setting on a sequence of numbers.

 ** _1903_**

As the numbers set, they flashed. The device emitted a sound.

 _Ding._


	2. A Bejeweled Past

**Chapter 2: A Bejeweled Past**

Immediately, the twins felt their vision explode with color and light-speed traveling, as if they had gone on a sudden acid trip. Just as quickly as it started, it ended, and the two popped into a new environment.

Dipper felt weak in the knees, as if he had just gotten spun around in a chair for 10 minutes and suddenly got up. He staggered around, forced to putting one knee on the ground as he got a hold of himself. He noticed Mabel in the same fashion.

"Wha...what happened?"

She looked over at him, worry in her eyes.

"I don't-"

That's when she looked up and around.

"Wha-where are we?"

Dipper began to take notice as well. Their environment had changed. There were field of corns behind them, to their front a ton of flatland, a single barn and-

"Who are those people?" Mabel asked, peering over at two silhouettes in the distance.

As she had seen, the two were standing in front of a prototype airplane of sorts, with flat wings extending out to each side.

Dipper looked down at the device again. He noticed the numbers '1903' were still imprinted on the bar.

"Woah! Dipper, what are you wearing?"

This last sentence Mabel began to snicker, and Dipper looked down to see his outfit. He was wearing a black and white striped vest, with a white undercoat tucked into his brown trousers, leading down to a pair of black dress shoes.

"I...dunno. What are _you_ wearing?"

Mabel tilted her head, then looked down. She was wearing a striped gown. She made a face as she looked at it.

"This feels...confining."

"How do you think I feel? This collar is too tight."

Dipper looked back up from the watch at the two silhouettes. This time, the airplane began to move, its propeller building up motion as the whole plane moved forward rapidly, running across the field.

1903…

A prototype airplane...

"Mabel!"

He turned to her, to which she jumped slightly at his sudden outburst.

"W-what?"

"This-" He pointed at the device in his hands. "-is a time traveling device!"

Mabel's jaw dropped.

"And those must be the Wright Brothers!"

He watched on as the plane, after a few moments, began to lift into the air. The lone silhouette began to clap and shout in excitement as the other flew upwards.

Dipper, having realized what they were seeing, was in awe of getting to see the first flight in the world.  
"So this means...this device can take us to any point in time?"

"Well, no, look at the imprint on the side."

Dipper looked to where she was pointing. There was indeed imprint on the side of the device:

 _WARNING_

 _ **DO NOT**_ _TRAVEL BEFORE 1900_

 _PRESS RED BUTTON TO RETURN_

 _FIND AND ELIMINATE THE OTHER TIME TRAVELER_

 _ **D/N'T C/A/GE H/ST/RY**_

The last words were scratched up, so Dipper couldn't read them. Hopefully it wasn't anything important.

"Well, we've seen one event. We could return home any time we wanted. Do you want to...you know...go home?"

"Well…"

Mabel hesitated for a moment.

"There must be a reason why we're here. After all, why was the town empty?"

"You're right. Look at that one line." He pointed to the line, and Mabel peered at it:

 _FIND AND ELIMINATE THE OTHER TIME TRAVELER_

Mabel nodded upon seeing the line.

"Okay, so we need to find that other time traveler and beat him up. Probably because he's messing with time, right?"

Dipper nodded. He was disturbed, though, by the use of the word 'eliminate'. Hopefully, they could find a way around that.

The last thing he wanted to do was kill somebody.

"Well, then let's keep going. I'm assuming this thing is randomized, since we didn't input any numbers."

"That would make sense." Mabel remarked.

At this thought, Dipper realized that trying to find the time traveler would depend entirely on the chance of what year they happened to randomly teleport to. Hopefully, they would get lucky.

"But wait, that guy could be _anywhere_ in _any year_ in the 20th century. How are we sure we're gonna find him at all?" Mabel asked.

"Well, I think the device would teleport us in the local area where he was. And it's not like he's gonna be hard to find, right?"

Mabel gave a skeptical look to that sentence.  
"I wouldn't assume that much. If our device put us in the clothes matching the year, then the same must apply to him."  
Dipper's confidence in finishing this mission further dropped.

"Well, let's just be on the lookout for what this guy will be carrying in his hands. Since our device is pretty big, his must be too…..right?"

"Sure."

Before Dipper pulled the handle, he noticed something on the left side of the device. He flipped it over and saw a vertical bar with colors on it, green-yellow-red, going upwards. A little stick was in the bottom of the green area. There was imprint below it:

 _TIME TRAVELER DETECTOR_

"Wow, this just made everything a whole lot easier."

"What?"

Dipper showed the side of the device to Mabel.

"So now all we have to do is just be in the same year as he is, and this thing should start going off."

Mabel nodded, smiling as she felt more confident in their mission.

"Well, that's definitely a relief."

Dipper felt the same way. He was about to pull the handle once more.

"Wait, Dipper."

He stopped, looking at Mabel.'

"Do you think the time traveler...is Blendin Blandin?"

It took Dipper a moment. He finally realized who Mabel was talking about.

"Oh yeah. It could be that guy, but you never know. I don't see why he'd mess with the past. After all, I pegged him as a stickler for rules. I'll keep him on the list of suspects, though."

Mabel nodded silently, having nothing else to say.

With that, Dipper pulled the handle. Once again, the bar of numbers began to spin, finally landing on a match after a few seconds.

 _1925._

 _Ding_.

* * *

After a second time through the time warp, Dipper felt more nauseous than before.

 _I can't see myself getting used to this,_ he thought. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mabel stumbling around as well. She probably experiencing the same.

As his vision stabilized, Dipper took a look around.

"Holy cow! Look at this place!"

Highrises, pavement, and passerby filled his vision. The people passing by had on less restrictive clothing than the time Dipper and Mabel had just come from. Women wore dresses, and the men wore fine suits with low-cut fedoras or boater hats.

"This is the roaring 20s!" Dipper commented. He noticed that Mabel was especially captivated with the place, as she pranced around with extra energy than usual.

"I LOVE this time period! Everything was swinging, the music was popping, and the outfits were fashionable!"

She did a 180, looking at Dipper with big, sparkling eyes.

"Can we stay here for a while? Please?"

As fun as this place was supposed to be, especially by the way Mabel described it, he wanted to look around pretty badly. However, what with their objective…

"I'm sorry, Mabel, but we gotta move on."

He felt crappy upon seeing Mabel's expression droop.

"Look, I want to stay as well, but we just simply don't have time right now. With as much as we're jumping around from one year to the next, we gotta find this time traveler before he REALLY messes up time."

Mabel nodded sadly, but Dipper felt further incentivized to assure her.

"Trust me, when we find and take care of this troublemaker, we can be having fun in all of these other timelines as much as we like."

At that thought, Mabel grinned.

"Then let's find him."

Dipper nodded.

"Well, it doesn't look like he'd be here anywhere, or this the meter would start reacting. Let's head to the next year."

He pulled the handle. The numbers began to spin once again, before landing on a new set of numbers.

 _1937_

 _Ding._

Once again, they went through the time warp. Luckily for Dipper, he WAS getting used to it. Only a little bit, though, as he almost heaved his breakfast as they arrived at their next destination. He was forced to one knee as he tried to balance his stomach out.

"Dipper, look!"

He could only respond with a groan. For some reason unbeknownst to him, Mabel was unaffected by the time warp. However, he managed to lift his head enough to see the legs of a crowd.

"My gosh, Dipper, come on!"

She raised him up, and he was able to get a better look of his environment. They were standing in front of a giant crowd, and Dipper could see the wings of a small, old-fashioned plane.  
"What's goin' on here?" He asked inquisitively. Mabel shrugged.

"Dunno."

Dipper looked around a bit. They were on an airstrip, and there were other onlookers to whatever was happening in front of the giant crowd. Dipper looked at Mabel.

"We should go see what's going on."

Mabel nodded, and they began to squeeze through the crowd. Eventually, they reached the forefront, and Dipper now had a view of the event.

"Oh my gravy!" He exclaimed. "That's Amelia Earhart!"

Indeed it was. Wearing a pilot cat and smiling as she waved to the large crowd. Dozens of reporters and camera men were desperately trying to get more information on her as she continued her routine.

Being this close to such a historical figure, Dipper was beginning to get absorbed into just how amazing these experiences were. Among all the things Dipper had seen, this was undoubtedly the most fascinating thing he had encountered in his entire life.

Unbeknownst to him, he was starting to get addicted to this device…

Mabel, on the other hand, wasn't as entranced with it as he was, but she was still amazed with its capabilities. However, she knew there was a task that needed accomplishing. She took a look at the detector. The tick wasn't moving upwards at all.

"Dipper, the time traveler isn't here. Let's get-"

"Alright!"

She was put off by how irritated Dipper reacted.

"Dipper, why are you so angry? You know we have a job to do."

Dipper's tone softened as he realized this.

"Oh, y-yeah, sorry. Just got...caught up in the moment."

Mabel nodded, smiling at him.

"It's fine, Dipper. Anyways, let's get going."

"Yep."

After taking one last look at Amelia, he walked back out of the crowd with Mabel. As they got out to a clearing, Dipper pulled the handle.

 _From there, the twins traveled around a couple more years, seeing the events that shaped history unfolding in front of their very eyes. Little did they know, however, of the danger that would soon await them..._


End file.
